Windows 8/Dyalog reality check

[jGoff]

With the Windows 8 operating system comes the "Windows App Store" and "Windows App Store apps". Is anyone familiar with the necessary ingredients for a "Windows App Store App"? In particular can Dyalog be used to create one? I assume there are both technical and licensing issues. How close is Dyalog to where it can be used create a WASA?

[Morten|Dyalog]

Sorry for the slow response, Easter happened... And we are not quite ready to answer this question yet. We are working on making Dyalog APL available on a number of new platforms, including "Windows 8 Modern UI", which is what I think you will need to use to create a WASA. It is my goal that we will be able to make some clearer statements about how and when you will be able to build Windows, Apple and Android "app store" applications at the conference this year (October). It *is* our goal to target all of these platforms, but we are doing this as part of a large project which involves making the interpreter fundamentally easier to port, and a graphical IDE (the "RIDE") which can be used to debug APL on any platform from any other platform.

To be perfectly honest, we don't see "app store" support to be a very high priority at this time (tell me about your project and we may change our minds :-)). We do want to get there eventually for a new generation of users and apps, but in the short term most people we talk to are planning to keep APL server side and use web servers or services using MiServer/SAWS or IIS/Apache, and build "app style" front ends using other technologies.

We also intend to spend significant time this year working on our WPF support, which we hope will allow applications to be developed for Windows Desktop and "New UI" platforms using the same or very similar tools.

Hope that helps, although it doesn't give you anything here and now!

[Tomas Gustafsson]

...but in the short term most people we talk to are planning to keep APL server side and use web servers or services using MiServer/SAWS or IIS/Apache, and build "app style" front ends using other technologies.

But we haven't talked for some time. I think this attitude is a bit limited. Almost dangerous. In the short term, you say, noticed. I really hope we'll get all the opportunities that others have :-). Soon you'll hear and see of an amazing case, the simulator. The distribution currently happens on a USB stick and it's only a Windows program.

But it will change. When an app is complex enough, it really requires downloadable and natively executable code. Only then has APL the possibility to reach world-level distribution and embedding. Would be so ass-kicking, since the we can do the complexity with this superior language. We'd be winners! Imagine coding Angry Birds with APL. Really not a big deal, right?

I think you want and can do it, and it's going to be fun! Keep pushing!

[Dick Bowman]

... most people we talk to are planning to keep APL server side and use web servers or services using MiServer/SAWS or IIS/Apache, and build "app style" front ends using other technologies...

Being both inquisitive and ill-informed (and not "most people") I've just downloaded/installed MiServer and am wondering whether there's any documentation supplemental to what's in the .zip file (which talks of a "Demo" folder which is, like my commonsense, missing).

Before I go too far down my exploratory path (where the aim is to construct a little application where the UI is built with HTML) I'm wondering whether there are any wise words I should be listening to - for example "don't do it".

I'm also wondering how much scope there is for staying in my APL Comfort Zone using either IIS or Apache. I really don't want to be messing with the likes of JavaScript as I enter my dotage.